Recruiting for jobs in remote locations like North Dakota's Bakken region isn't easy. But recruiting from the local population can help a company fill open positions in rural areas faster than targeting candidates from big cities.

How do we help retirement-age workers in lower-level jobs make the transition, even as we begin planning succession for higher-level jobs? We have some workers who are several years past our voluntary retirement age and want to make sure the company is prepared for their departure. For other higher-level jobs, we are just starting to look at who our successors might be.
—Cautious, HR manager, education, Kingston, Jamaica

Women make up about a quarter of the manufacturing industry's workforce, according to a recent report by Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute. The same report suggests the industry should actively focus on recruiting women to fill hundreds of thousands of empty positions.